3.14

Yes it is Pi Day or 3/14. I’ve been searching the interwebz for some funny way to connect π to skiing, but I decided it was irrational to do so. So lets get on with the ski report…

Wow, today was excellent, until it was not. What stopped it from being excellent depends on what time of day you quit skiing. More on that later.

We didn’t ski until 1 pm yesterday, so the reality of Daylight Savings Time did not set in until this morning. It felt like dawn when we drove into the parking lot this morning. Fortunately the sun was just reaching the Summit corral when the lifts started spinning. Upon our arrival at Sunspot, I found an amazing view from the top of Sunspot, until Bobble skied into my picture. Fortunately his form was worthy of the glimmering sun on Lake Tahoe. The lighting was ethereal on those first couple of runs, and the snow quality of the groomers was outstanding.

As we skied the next two hours, a standing wave cloud formed right over the sun, the light went flat and that chased many skiers inside. It seemed like the south facing and off piste terrain might never soften with those clouds. But we did a quick lunch and headed back out, hoping for the best. It worked out just fine. We had another hour where the off piste snow softened just the perfect amount. We found really fun off piste skiing on Chicken Leg (I learned yet another name for that run this week!), Fall Line, Alternate Yellow and Orange.

That gave us the courage to head to Sherwood. The groomer was good but as more and more sun poked out, things got a bit stickier. A trial run down Robin Hood was like glue in yesterday’s snow. We moved on over to Lakeview and found variable conditions on Outer Limits and Jorgs, with some pitches being great, and some sticky patches threatening to pitch you over the tips. We headed over to Scott and found the same. The slog through the Trail of Tears and Weasel as we returned to the base made it easy to call it a day around 1 pm.

That’s The Problem With Spring Storms

Unless you get a storm cycle where the clouds stay overhead and temperatures stay below freezing for days on end, spring powder is short lived fun. It’s great while it’s happening, but the next few days you are paying the price. It generally takes a few days for things to corn up again and lose the sticky factor. When we get storms every 3-5 days, we spend a lot of time with the stickies between storms. Still, we need some moisture to keep rolling in so the fire season does not start in April…and that is more important than skiing.

The Upcoming Storms

There’s still snow or rain in the forecast for tomorrow. It’s not a game changer storm. The point forecast shows the potential for 2-4 inches of snow. I’m fairly certain the point forecasts are based on the NAM model, as that is also the amount shown by the NAM…also the NAM only goes out three days and precipitation amounts don’t appear in the automated point forecasts until 3 days out. The GFS is suggesting more like 4-6 inches of snow, which is what some forecasters hung their hat on today. In general, the NAM does better at short range forecasting than the GFS.

I am a bit concerned with snow levels. In general terms, the bold red line is the most likely scenario over the next 2 days. The lesser red lines above and below show the range of possibilities. So the most likely solution is that the snow level sits right at the base of Alpine Meadows, but could be significantly higher. Looking at this graphic, I would expect that tomorrow will be more of a cream cheese day rather than a powder day. Even at the coldest, it would still be Sierra cement. After that  we get some warm sticky days until the next storm on Saturday.

The models are again all over the place for the Saturday storm. There is no run to run consistency today, nor is there much model to model consistency. It’s probably going to snow Saturday. The snow level is not likely to be much lower. We need to wait for some consistency before making a meaningful guess.

Now to find some pie for Pi Day…